I’m not really a big quote person, but I think this one deserves the deviation.

(via Mekaelia–YNPN-NYC Partnerships Chair)

I was on vacation with my family in Vermont on January 12th– mostly concerned with sledding as much as possible and eating buffalo wings and s’mores. So, upon my return to civilization I was caught off-guard by the whirlwind of the Haiti earthquake. I saw on CNN the announcement that 50,000 people were presumed dead. “What?! That cannot be right.” I could not comprehend the number of human lives lost or wrap my head around what was going on. But the number has only continued to rise and fatalities are now estimated at over 200,000. It is beyond staggering.

I find it very difficult to understand what it going on and so, I do what most people do when trying to comprehend a difficult situation: I try to empathize. Although, of course in this case that is impossible–I try my best.

I was 10 years old when Hurricane Andrew–a category 5 hurricane–hit South Florida in 1992. I remember the day before the hurricane hit: our house was boarded up with plywood, we brought all the backyard toys into the living room, I took breaks from pulling down grapefruits and avocados from our trees (so they wouldn’t break windows when the wind picked up) by jumping in the pool. We were in an evacuation zone, so we left in the early evening for my grandmother’s house. We passed the night 6 of us in my grandmother’s closet sitting on shoes.

And the next day our house–along with every other one in my neighborhood–was completely destroyed and uninhabitable.

We spent the next couple of months as vagabonds. I remember sleeping in sheets that were unknowingly covered in fiberglass and itching uncontrollably, moving from one person’s house to another, feeling lucky that my grandmother had a gas stove so we could cook and boil water. My mother, meanwhile, was literally excavating our home for anything she could find to salvage, trying to process our insurance (and document every single thing we lost) so we could have a place to live, and just making sure we had the basic necessities. Businesses and schools were closed for months–the economy obviously under duress–as residents tried to piece their lives together and make sense of a life-changing catastrophe.

Hurricane Andrew resulted in $40.7 billion (2008 USD) in property damage and 69 fatalities [Hurricane Katrina resulted in $89.6 billion (2008 USD) in property damage and 1,836 fatalities]. Fatalities from Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Katrina are each less than 1% of the current estimated fatalities in Haiti. These numbers only just begin to put the extreme devastation in Haiti into perspective. Wyclef Jean, who has been in Haiti recovering dead bodies, very appropriately describes it as the apocalypse:

What does this mean for aid? For disaster preparation? For emergency response? For sympathy? For empathy? But maybe more importantly, for collective action?

The truth of the matter is that it is impossible to understand what is happening in Haiti without being there–you can only imagine, and I know my imagination is not even scratching the surface despite my experience with a destructive natural disaster. But that doesn’t prevent action. Today the YNPN-NYC listserv has been full of benefit events from various nonprofit organizations to raise money for relief efforts in Haiti. The Nonprofit Millennial Bloggers Alliance committed to writing about the topic. Individuals around the world are donating money and raising awareness–text message donations alone have already raised USD$22 million in a week. Celebrities, including Sandra Bullock and Gisele Bundchen who have donated USD$1 million and USD$1.5 million respectively, are also making major financial contributions to the relief effort.

But perhaps the real action is a long-term commitment to relief, development, and moral support. It took South Florida years to fully recover Hurricane Andrew, New Orleans still continues to struggle post-Katrina–and this disaster is far, far worse. Young nonprofit leaders, get ready. Now is the time to step up.

In celebration of the community-based organization’s third year of connecting “people with businesses, organizations and the resources they need to build a sustainable future” the group will be hosting a blow-out party at littlefield in Brooklyn.

Things you should know:

Tickets are $20 (and include raffle tickets! YESSSS! I am personally hoping to snag the Blades Natural Beauty item. )

The event runs from 7:00 pm-11:00 pm.

From 7:30-8:30 there will be representatives from Root for Trees, Tap It, Brooklyn Green Team, Rising Tide Initiative, and Solar 1 at the nonprofit booths. Now is your chance to meet other awesome environmentally-minded folks doing great things in NYC.

Hope to see you all there!

I want to preface my answer by saying that I am a total nerd–so looking at numbers, evaluating statistical relationships, and quantifying values are all very exciting to me. But why do these things matter to nonprofit organizations which are providing social good? If Girls on the Run (GOTR)–”a nonprofit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running”–provides a great after-school program, does it really matter what the impact is? Shouldn’t we just be glad that they are providing this service?

The State of Measuring Social Impact

One of the main reasons that social impact measurement is not very well developed is that oftentimes nonprofits are granted a sort of amnesty from evaluation and critique because of their mission-based structure. There is an attitude of: “If you are doing something good, we really aren’t going to be too hard on you.” The second reason is that quantifying the value of social goods is a very difficult and often contentious issue. Your Economics 101 class will always bring up the “how much is a human life worth?” argument. Most people would say “priceless,” but health insurance companies have a real dollar amount they ascribe to the value of human life which is what they base their premiums off of.This is obviously an ethical and moral issue for many people and has been the source of much academic debate.

In the case of Girls on the Run a question might be: (a) How do you measure the self-respect of preteen girls?  and, (b) How much is that self-respect worth?

Defining Social Impact

How a nonprofit defines social impact must relate back to its mission statement. Let’s look again at Girls on the Run’s mission:

Girls on the Run is a non-profit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running. Our curricula address all aspects of girls’ development – their physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being.

Based on their mission, does it make sense for GOTR to do a study to see how many of their participants end up competing in college-level sports? Although an effect of the program may be to encourage more girls to participate in athletics that is not the mission of the organization nor the goal of its programming; therefore, this is not a good definition of the program’s social impact.

What would be an appropriate definition of effectiveness? GOTR’s mission implies that “self-respect and healthy lifestyles” encompass several factors: physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being. While all of these things will probably mean different things to different girls, this will be the basis of how the organization will define the impact of its programs. They may define positive impact as girls who have high self-esteem, are proud of themselves, are empowered and actively empower others. How they actually define social impact is rather more dire:

Some Sad Facts For Today’s Girls:

• Three million young Americans seriously considered suicide in 2000 and of those, over 1 million actually tried to kill themselves.
• Girls were twice as likely as boys to report contemplating suicide.
• Body dissatisfaction and dietary restraint are predictors of depression in girls.
• Almost two-thirds of girls in 5th-12th grades are dissatisfied with their body shape and want to lose weight.
• Girls as young as five form negative self-images based on their weight.
• Among girls, an emphasis on popularity and slimness along with increased television viewing are linked to low self-esteem.

If You Want To Help Change That, Here Is Some Good News:

• Girls who participate in physical activities are 40% less likely to smoke, have higher levels of self-esteem, better body images, and lower levels of depression.
• Girls who have experienced emotional trauma respond positively to physical fitness programs.
• Girls who participate in physical activities are less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior during adolescence.
• Girls who participate in physical exercise have better relationships with parents, get better grades, are less likely to use drugs and are less depressed than girls who don’t.

By defining their social impact, GOTR has made a very strong case for why its after school running program is necessary. Now the trick will be ensuring that the program is actually impactful.

Measurement: Why bother?

If it seems clear that you are doing something beneficial, why do you need to bother investing time, money, and energy in determining how to measure something as abstract as self-respect?  It’s a good question and I have two answers.

1.) You are in the business of being an expert in _________ (fill in the blank). In this case, girls’ self-respect. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to be not just a program administrator, but also a thought leader–which includes researching, deconstructing, and analyzing the issue you are addressing. Or, if being a thought-leader is beyond the scope of your mission or services, you need to be connected with people who are the thought-leaders in your area.

2.) By better understanding the mechanisms and variables you are working with, you can better serve your population and achieve your mission. Look at this example:

You have high cholesterol and your doctor advises that you switch to a diet of only Cheerios. Two months later you go back and still have high cholesterol. Are you going to keep forgoing other foods in favor of Cheerios? Hopefully not. Hopefully you either (a) get a new doctor or (b) you and your doctor devise Plan B and will have another follow-up to re-evaluate your progress.

Evaluation, trial-and-error, and analysis make so much sense in the case of health, why not social impact? The only difference here is that centuries of medical research give doctors the sophisticated ability to measure cholesterol and provide baselines for comparison. In the Middle Ages, I doubt you would have stopped eating those Cheerios. As far as social impact measurement goes, this won’t require centuries of work but rather a commitment to the importance of social impact metrics, some experts, and some creativity.

GOTR has defined the impact they want to have, but now they want to measure their impact. So what do they do? Call in an expert and get creative:

And The Best News? If She’s Involved With Girls On The Run:

• she has higher self-esteem;**
• she has improved eating attitudes;**
• she has an improved body image;** and
• she has a positive peer group and positive role models for her future.

**According to research conducted by Dr. Rita DeBate, Ph.D., MPH, CHES, assistant professor in the department of Health Behavior at UNC-Charlotte, the Girls on the Run Curricula improve girls self-esteem, body image and eating attitudes to a “statistically significant” extent.

How else are they (unofficially) measuring success? The had an essay contest (sponsored by Secret, all winnings went to the winner’s GOTR chapter) asking each girl to explain “How has Girls on the Run helped you to be more fearless?” Hannah, a 3rd grader from Chicago wrote:

“Through Girls on the Run I learned that I’ll never reach my goal unless I take a chance. I know if I try my best and put my heart into it, I can do anything. I never thought I could finish a 5K but I practiced and worked very hard until I reached my goal. Even though I wasn’t first, in my mind I was a winner, because I tried my best and had fun.“

(I imagine that there are a lot of adults who wished they had that perspective.)

Valuing Social Impact

In the Cheerios example, how highly you value health and longevity will directly correlate with the amount of time, money, and effort you invest in lowering your cholesterol (which in turn relates to what you expect your return on investment, or ROI, to be).

In terms of GOTR, what is the value of girls’ self-respect? What does that translate into in terms of quantitative impact? Do self-respecting women lead more productive and successful professional careers (income is quantifiable), have less health issues (health care costs are quantifiable),  provide better educational opportunities for their children (tuition is quantifiable)? Are there other proxies for the value of self-respect?

Social Impact Investing

Not only does measuring social impact give us great feedback in terms of performance and areas for improvement, but it also helps us evaluate ways to maximize social return on investment. In the end, as a sector,  we want to get as much social bang for our buck. What does that require? Constantly looking for ways to achieve our missions more efficiently and effectively and having a clear understanding of the measurable value of our social impact.

Check out how some of the other nonprofit millenial bloggers view this issue:

Colleen, Does Writing a Check Equal Social Change?
Elizabeth, What is Social Impact?
Alison, Five Problems with How We Measure Social Change
Elisa, Measuring Social Impact
Tracey, The Meaning of Social Impact
James, Measuring Social Impact

• Rosetta Thurman, Perspectives from the Pipeline, @rosettathurman
• James Elbaor, From the Desk of James Elbaor, @jameselbaor
• Elisa M. Ortiz, Onward and Upward, @emortiz
• Elizabeth Clawson, Nonprofit Periscope, @eclawson
• Trina Isakson, Trina’s Nonprofit Blog, @telleni
• Colleen Dilenschneider, Know Your Bone, @cdilly
• Tera Wozniak Qualls, Social Citizen, @terawozqualls
• Tracey Webb, Black Gives Back, @blkgivesback
• Kevin Gilnack, (Nonprofits + Politics)2.0, @kgilnack
• Allison Jones, Entry Level Living,@ajlovesya
• Ben Sheldon, Island 94, @bensheldon

I encourage you to follow these great social change advocates on Twitter and read their fabulous and insightful blogs. You will not be disappointed! I promise!

Stay tuned! As tomorrow is my innaugural Alliance post!

The best kept secret in the world of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is that CSR is an inside job. Many people who are heading up CSR departments (or are the CSR department) at their companies, were once regular employees who one day decided to start recycling at the office or organize volunteer days. What resulted was a snowball effect. Management saw the benefits of sustainability, clients became interested and engaged, the company re-branded and marketed its efforts, and these employees continued to develop more and more socially responsible initiatives. A new way of doing business had been born and a new social champion had arrived: the social intrapreneur.

For the full article go here.

And a shout out to the members of the NYWSE crew (specifically Shari Aaron, Ashby Andrews, Natalia Oberti Noguera, & Stephanie Niloff) who are hard at work getting this amazing program off the ground!

1. Openness is not the enemy of quality. Jimmy Wales said this during Nancy’s questioning the openness of Wikipedia. The idea is Wikipedia serves as an example that people want to be objective. The fact that Wikipedia is completely open for anyone to make additions/edits and that the vast majority of wikipedia is correct and objective shows that people by-and-large want to be objective. So extrapolating that, Jimmy feels that businesses should be as open as possible and allow feed-back from others. Doing so creates a “community” atmosphere where people want to be engaged with a company and its products.

2. Micro-finance is over. This came across in a lot of panel discussions. The space is over-crowded causing micro-finance institutions to lend to people for commercial means. I.e. people are receiving loans for T.V.’s rather than to start a business. Increasing access to credit is good but the new question is: Are we now keeping people perpetually in debt rather than actually lifting people from poverty?– which was the original goal of micro-finance.

I do love the Wikipedia model and think that the idea of “openness is not the enemy of quality” is really speaking the same language as the work being done to increase transparency and accountability in both the nonprofit (thinking of charity:water’sgeo-tagged project photos) and corporate (thinking of Zappos for example) sectors.

In terms of microfinance, hmm…sounds like a wave of potentially bad PR and brand management of the “microfinance” concept. I wonder how things will move forward in this area and how micro-finance thought leaders will continue to use this model as a way to catalyze change and development.

Competition: Nonprofits are constantly targeted by the business-minded as lacking efficiency due to the fact that NPOs are not competing in an open market. As a result, the need for innovation is removed. Which is not to say that innovation isn’t necessarily occurring in the nonprofit world, but it tends to be driven internally (as in, “Hey we feel like we want to do this”) rather than externally (as in, “Hey we have to do this if we want to survive”). The competition element is increasing, however, as nonprofit watchdogs, like Charity Navigator, and private foundations are relying on industry best-practices to evaluate the relative effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. This in turn is informing where foundations invest their funding and encourages individual donors to also do their research when giving.

Collaboration: There seems to be two main camps of nonprofits: those who play well and those who don’t–and these two are often easy to distinguish. Nonprofits who play well with others collaborate with complementary organizations in order to better achieve their mission and further define their social niche. For these organizations, there are formal and informal partnerships, co-sponsored events, etc. Those who don’t play well tend to feel threatened by organizations who are “encroaching” on their funding territory and will not only avoid any sort of collaboration, but may even try to sabotage their competitors’ efforts (yikes!).

Communication: Talking with folks in the social enterprise and nonprofit world, something you hear all the time is the lack of communication happening between organizations. Maybe part of that is related to the competition element, where NPOs feel like they only need to communicate with their funders. Maybe part of that is related to the collaboration element, where NPOs don’t feel like sharing what is working well for them because it may threaten their  success relative to others. Either way, the lack of communication is decidedly a factor leading to many organizations simultaneously inventing the wheel…and maybe even simultaneously re-inventing the wheel. Both of these scenarios are pretty inefficient.

What does this mean? In the business world a lack of communication (like trade secrets) are part of what give businesses their advantage over others (for example, Coca Cola’s secret formula). But Coke’s competitors are using private investor money to develop their competing product and  (assuming they believe in the product otherwise they wouldn’t be investing in it) are expecting a return on investment (ROI).

In the social sector, does it make sense to fund Organization A with $10,000 to learn how to best to do X and also to fund Organization B with $10,000 to learn how best to do X? It sounds really obvious, but it happens all the time.

Furthermore, what are the ethical implications of inefficiently (or maybe even irresponsibly) using funding? How can we reduce a lack of communication and collaboration to encourage more efficiency? If Organization A learns how best to do X  with its $10,000 and shares this information with Organization B, then Organization B can learn how to do Y (the next step after X) with its $10,000 and in turn share that information.This would lead to a higher social ROI, because now, instead of having 2X for $20,000 we would have 2X+2Y for $20,000.

“Wait wait! This sounds crazy! But then they would be direct competitors and one would clearly fail!” Well, yes that would happen if they both provided the exact same service. The trick is for these organizations to find niches–which can be geographic, programmatic, population-based, etc. For example, maybe Organization A works in San Francisco and Organization B works in South Africa. Or, Organization A works with environmental issues and Organization B works on hunger issues. Or, Organization A works with elementary school children in NYC and Organization B works with college students in NYC.  Rather than spending time co-learning how to do X+Y, both organizations can now spend the rest of their time perfecting their program based on their niche.

“This sounds like a horrible idea.” Well, it may be a horrible idea, BUT! Look at what open source has done for the mobile technology community. Apple could have made its API a “trade secret” and have a monopoly on the applications that were sold for the iPhone. However, they made it open source and the number of iPhone apps has exploded because individual developers can create applications for the iPhone that they can then sell to iPhone users. So, while Apple isn’t solely benefiting from the income from app sales, they have dramatically increased the value of their product by passive collaboration and communication via open sourcing. [You can also look at WordPress the successful open source blogging platform--which I am currently using .]

Kiva has taken a hint from this and has open sourced their API in order to speed up the development of their online micro-finance program. They even include a list of things that they would love to see someone develop, including:

• An application for iPhone or Blackberry that let’s you keep up with Kiva on the go
• A service where lenders can register for alerts on new entrepreneurs they want to fund
• Integration into a social network where friends can engage around each others’ activity and loan updates on Kiva
• A map that simulates the realtime transfer of funds across the globe

The take-away: Open sourcing is a great way to share information, increase efficiency, and increase innovation because it offers others incentive (whether that is bragging rights and exposure or actual monetary benefit) to participate in your larger development process. It also naturally increases communication, collaboration, and competition (which of course feedback into increased efficiency and innovation). So, the next question is: What are ways that the nonprofit sector can open source?

There was, however, a recurring theme that I noticed in many of my conversations: franchising, financing, and technology.

But let me back up a bit…the night before I attended a panel discussion at The Foundation Center on donor management systems. As some of the organizations I am working with are revving up for full-on fund development, implementing an affordable donor management program seems like a good part of the plan. I was a little shocked when I arrived that probably 80% of the attendees were twice my age. I got up and asked a question regarding options for donor management systems that would work for organizations with staff who telecommute and lack a brick-and-mortar base of operations. The question was confused people–both in the audience and in the panel–but I got a helpful answer in the end. However, the answer suited my question by accident–these traditional programs aren’t being designed with 21st century social entrepreneurs in mind, they just may work out unintentionally.

The demographic of The Feast was a stark contrast. It was packed with social-media savvy social entrepreneurs, many of whom were connecting for the first-time in person after months of communicating via Twitter, blogs, or email. For these social innovators, both the presenters and the audience, there were three things that kept coming up: franchising, financing, and technology.

Franchising: Social innovators are continuing to apply business methods to social ventures. Many organizations (like SHEnterprises (who presented at The Feast), The Unreasonable Institute, and The Ayllu Initiative) have incorporated franchising or model duplication as part of their strategy in order to implement successful programs on a large-scale. The organizations plan to make necessary tweaks to variables–like geographic location, population, materials, etc.–and roll out easily replicable programs that will yield high social impact.

Financing: Each start-up social venture must decide early on whether or not it is going to be for-profit or nonprofit.  Many incubator programs, like Echoing Green, don’t “discriminate” between nonprofit and for-profit ventures and encourage both structures as a means for social innovation. The decision between  nonprofit and for-profit, for many entrepreneurs, may be based on practicality, organizational mission, or structure. For many young social entrepreneurs, a for-profit social venture is an exciting opportunity to prove that socially-minded business can be financially sustainable.  However, when it comes down to it–the lack of flexibility between the two legal structures and the type of financing available, has many would-be for-profit social entrepreneurs turning to the 501(c)3.  The new L3C  (Low-Profit Limited Liability Company) is a new option that addresses this issue, but many feel like it is not fully developed yet.

While turning to nonprofit status may seem like the only viable option for start-ups seeking seed funding, the next step is communicating with foundations and individual donors about social entrepreneurship–a still relatively new field that is experiencing high-growth.  Finding, and then competing, for these funds is another challenge.

Technology: Someone at The Feast asked, “Where did all of these people come from?” My thought, “The internet.” Over 1,000 tweets were posted during The Feast (here’s the twitter feed)…and I haven’t even gotten around to checking out all the amazing blog posts about it. So #1) These social innovators are connecting via social media to keep the conversation going, network, and problem solve. #2) These leaders are also utilizing technology to implement their programs. Charity:water (who presented at The Feast), in an effort to increase transparency in the organization, is geo-tagging digital photographs of their projects around the world. (I mean seriously, check this out.) Another organization, Frontline SMS (who also presented), is using text messaging solutions for nonprofits…because, guess what? Most of the people in the world do not have internet access. So technology doesn’t just mean using the best technology available in the world, but using the best technology available for a given situation to solve the world’s problems.

This goes back to my experience at The Foundation Center. We may need to re-design and re-think some of the traditional nonprofit tools, resources, and structures.  “Accidental” tools are probably not the best, and assuming that these tools will have multiplier effects across the world (either multiplying efficiency or inefficiency)–it probably makes sense to design these tools with intention. What technologies would help a virtual nonprofit office? What are easily replicable best-practices for start-up social ventures? (These best practices, arguably will be easy to communicate and transfer due to this population’s heavy use of social media.) How can we duplicate not just our programs, but our start-up structures, procedures, methods for transparency and accountability? How can we increase access to financing and encourage faith in social enterprise amongst investors ?

What do I see happening next? Well, The Feast did an amazing job connecting like-minded social innovators and continuing to inspire them to action. Now, the next step is finding out what are the limiting factors for development of start-up social ventures. The innovation is happening faster than the infrastructure supporting it can catch up. The good news: the hard part is over. Entrepreneurship is notoriously difficult to teach–they’ve got the goods, let’s give them the tools to succeed.

Elizabeth Scharpf, Chief Instigating Officer at Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE)
Katie Orenstein, Founder and Director at The Op-Ed Project
Amini Kajunju, CEO/COO at the and Executive Committee member at Angel Africa

They are the big-wigs at their respective organizations and have each made great strides in addressing social issues, but these three women were also honest, funny, and down-to-earth about life as a woman social entrepreneur. Elizabeth Scharpf spoke about her “tipping point” that guided her down a different path. She had been working at an INGO in Mozambique, and had spoken with some young children about what they wanted to be when the grew up. One child answered: “I want to work for a big international development organization, because I want to be rich.” Hmmm. That wasn’t exactly the motivation for involvement in the social sector that she (or really anyone else for that matter) wanted to hear. What resulted was Elizabeth’s pursuit of an alternative path that led her to start SHE.

Amini took an existing nonprofit organization (now in its 4th decade) and turned it around. When she arrived the organization had $30,000 in the bank and she had to fundraise her own salary. Now the organization has a $600,000 annual operating budget and is licensing its 16-week mini-MBA to organizations across the country. All three women pointed out what a large role volunteers played in not only keeping these organizations afloat, but more importantly in moving them forward. At Amini’s organization, WIBO, 35% of their volunteers have been with the organization for 10 years or more. She should definitely be writing a book on volunteer retention!!

Katie was the reluctant social entrepreneur. A professional journalist, Katie had no interest in running a nonprofit or social venture, but statistics about the representation of women writers on Op-Ed pages sent her down a different path. Currently about 15% of Op-Ed pieces are written by women–and apparently this statistic is “bizarrely consistent” throughout television, congress, and NYT Best Sellers. BUT…apparently while about 85% of Op-Ed pieces are by male writers, apparently about 90% of submissions are by men as well. Hmmm. It’s not that pieces by women aren’t being selected, it’s that they aren’t being submitted.

Katie’s mission, however, is not specifically about Op-Ed pages. It’s about “thought leadership” and making sure that women’s perspectives are being heard across the board. The Op-Ed Project was born since its a tangible concept with measurable outcomes (Please take notes budding social entrepreneurs.) She made a very deliberate choice regarding her branding, message, and mission.

I’d recommend setting aside a time to listen to these women speak, or take advantage of the programs they offer.

Say “Hi” to Amini this Friday and Saturday at the Angel Africa Enterprise Conference (Currently a buy 1 get 1 free on tickets!!)

Catch Elizabeth next week at The Feast.

or,  Sign Up for one of The Op-Ed Project’s Upcoming Seminars.